Man sentenced to prison in 12-year-old's slaying

Jan. 7, 2014
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Joshua Brown was sentenced to more than two decades behind bars in connection with the death of 12-year-old Kadejah Davis-Talton. Elisha Anderson/Detroit Free Press / Elisha Anderson, Detroit Free Press

by Elisha Anderson, Detroit Free Press

by Elisha Anderson, Detroit Free Press

DETROIT -- A Detroit man was sentenced Tuesday to 26 to 52 years in prison for killing a 12-year-old girl after a dispute over a cellphone.

Kadejah Davis-Talton was fatally shot in her home in 2012.

Joshua Brown, 21, was sentenced to 24 to 50 years for second-degree murder and assault with intent to murder. He was ordered to serve two additional years for using a firearm during a felony.

Wayne County Circuit Judge Vonda Evans said Brown's mother, Heather Brown, became a sleuth after her cellphone went missing. She tracked information on it and then turned to her son for help.

Kadejah's mom, Almanda Talton, said she had found a phone in her car and turned it in at a tax preparer's business.

Joshua Brown went to Talton's Detroit home to confront her about the phone and shot through the door, killing Kadejah.

"You knew right from wrong," Evans told Brown. "When your mother told you what happened to her phone, you should have been man enough to allow her to fight her own battles."

Brown, speaking quietly, apologized to his family and offered condolences to Kadejah's family.

Kadejah's aunt, Tamara Laney, read a letter from the girl's mother that said words and actions can't express how Talton feels.

"I miss her so much," Talton wrote.

A short time later, Evans delivered a message to Brown's mother.

"Ms. Brown, all I can say is that if you had not made your son your crutch, we would not be here today," she said. "Instead of teaching your child to accept loss, you taught him to get even."

Investigators previously said Heather Brown drove her son to Talton's house, and then drove him away after the shooting. She pleaded no contest to being an accessory after the fact and was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to serve nine months in the Wayne County Jail with work release, online records show.

She maintained her innocence and her son's innocence and vowed to appeal.

Joshua Brown, who was on probation at the time of the shooting, was supposed to be wearing an electronic tether, but it was never activated. The Michigan Department of Corrections agent supervising him and the agent's supervisor were fired.